RV LIFE Podcast
The RV LIFE Podcast, created by one of the premier companies in the RV industry, is for the RV Community with a mission to Educate, Entertain and Explore the RV Lifestyle. The Podcast will explore all things RV Life: living, working, exploring, learning. With hosts Dan & Patti Hunt, full time RVers, content creators, educators and explorers.
RV LIFE Podcast
Top Mississippi River Road Trip Stops for RV Travelers
Join me, Patti Hunt as I explore the the hidden gems along the Mississippi River with expert guest Dean Klinkenberg, author of Road Tripping the Great River Road. Discover breathtaking destinations, rich history, and must-visit spots for RV travelers along the mighty Mississippi. Dean shares insights into the best scenic drives, charming small towns, and top cultural and natural attractions along the river. Whether you're planning a full road trip or a weekend getaway, this episode is packed with valuable travel tips and recommendations.
Dean Klinkenberg MississippiValleyTraveler.com Email: dean@travelpassages.com
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Are you ready to discover the hidden gems along the mighty Mississippi River? I'm Patti Hunt and you're listening to the RV Life Podcast. My expert guest today is the host of the Mississippi Valley Traveler and he is here to share must-see destinations along the mighty Mississippi River. Now, Dean, tell us why you decided to explore the Mississippi River.
Speaker 2:I really got familiar with the Mississippi I guess you could say it got its hooks in me when I was a college student in La Crosse, wisconsin, and I spend a lot of my time sort of brooding and thinking and trying to calm myself by biking down to the river for some quiet time. And over the years I've just it's impressed me so much with the depth of history represented along the river, with the range of natural beauty. Basically you can have just about any kind of experience you want to have anywhere along the Mississippi.
Speaker 1:And I am so excited. I have very little experience with the Mississippi River, so, if you could hear my voice, I am so excited to hear the things that people can see and do and, like you say, the hidden gems along the river. I traveled for those people who aren't familiar back and forth across the country three and a half times over a more than three-year period of time. I was full-time on the road and I don't think I spent any time being near the Mississippi River exploring any of that. So today, after listening to you, I know I will have places to add to my bucket list. So I'm so grateful you are on this show with us.
Speaker 1:The RV Life podcast was created to entertain, educate and explore the RV lifestyle, and it is my mission to inspire you, my listener, to live life to the fullest. Let's talk first about Open Road Resorts. They have five amazing locations one in Idaho, one in Nebraska, one in New Mexico and two in Texas. They believe in being guest centric, with a welcoming community feel. All of these parks are featured on the RV Life Campgrounds. They are featured parks and you could check out all of the reviews you don the RV Life Campgrounds. They are featured parks and you could check out all of the reviews. You don't have to listen to me, you don't have to listen to what they have to say. Just check out the reviews. The people who've stayed at this park are leaving incredible reviews and you could check those out on campgroundsrvlifecom or you could go to openroadresortscom Today. Dean Klinkenberg, did I say that right?
Speaker 2:You nailed it.
Speaker 1:I got it. Names are you know, I'm working on them the Mississippi Valley Traveler. You've spent two decades chronicling America's mightiest river, from Minnesota's pristine forest to the saltwater swamps of the Gulf Coast. He mixes library research with conversation in local bars and coffee shops and has explored the river's world by driving, hiking and paddling and he prefers paddling. His work bridges multiple genres, from critically acclaimed natural history guide the Wild Mississippi to his authoritative guide book series. Dean also writes mysteries featuring Frank Dodge, a travel writer whose adventures weave through the rivers and I'm going to screw this up, say it Enigmatic.
Speaker 2:Enigmatic.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I did get it right. Okay, history with contemporary intrigue. I write this out. I had the word in my head. You know this is real life. I lost it. As a respected voice on Mississippi River culture, dean's writing has appeared in Spisonian Magazine, the National, the St Louis Post-Dispatch and the Minneapolis Star Tribute. He also shares his river expertise as a sought-after guest lecturer on the Mississippi's natural and cultural history, offering audiences a unique blend of historical knowledge and firsthand experience, and he is the host of the Mississippi Valley Traveler podcast. And I'm so excited I can't even talk, so I'm glad today you will be doing most of the talking as you lead us through all 10 states that the Mississippi River flows through and destinations that we should check out. Welcome, dean, to the RV Life podcast.
Speaker 2:Patty, thank you so much for inviting me onto this podcast, and I'm always excited to talk about my favorite place, which is anywhere along the Mississippi, and I'm always excited to talk about my favorite place, you know, which is anywhere along the Mississippi, so I'm really looking forward to this conversation with you today.
Speaker 1:Great, and let's get started. Tell us a little bit about who you are. I talked about all the things you do, but who are you Tell? Us about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes I'm trying to figure that out myself. You know I have not followed an especially linear career path. You know, when I was younger I thought I wanted to change the world through psychology and I went to grad school and became a psychologist and I worked in an academic setting for a lot of years. I worked with some pretty tough folks and some tough communities and over time I just kind of came to realize not because of the difficulty of the work, but I just didn't feel like I was especially well suited to stay in that academic setting for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:I'm a hard person to confine behind a desk day in and day out Although ironically I kind of do it now as a writer but it didn't seem like it was going to be the best fit for me. I really like to have a good mix of time out in the real world with time to kind of sit and think about and write about what's going on. So I made a big change and I decided to write about travel, because I've always been like a very avid traveler and I've been lucky enough to go to almost 40 countries around the world and all 50 states and travel and curiosity are deep parts of my character. I'm a Midwestern guy too, so I grew up here in the middle part of the country and I always have felt like the places along the Mississippi never really get their due. You know that this is a special part of the country.
Speaker 2:Those of us who live here tend to take it for granted. Hey, you know that this is a special part of the country. Those of us who live here tend to take it for granted hey, you know, it's just right over there, I can see it anytime. What's so special about this place that I can drive to in five minutes? And over time I've really come to appreciate how this river is so special in so many ways, but it attracts people from around the world. People come from all over the world to see the Mississippi and spend time along the river, and I decided it had to be my mission to help explain to those of us who maybe live closer to what makes this place, this river, such a special place.
Speaker 1:And again, I'm so grateful to have you on because you are such a wealth of information for my RVers and, as we talked about, my listeners consist of people who are full-time people, who are some time, people who are just looking to explore their area and people who are looking to maybe getting in an RV, which we talked about. You said that that was something you were thinking about. I put you on the spot. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, I follow a couple of RVers and van life people on YouTube and it does. I think it's nice because in some ways it strips away some of the veneer over the life and you get to see more of the day-to-day challenges that come with that. I'm not sure I'm ready today to dip a toe into that, but I'm RV curious, I would say, and would love to maybe take a couple of weeks and rent something and travel around and just get a taste of what the experience is like. I love the sense of mobility. You know. The ability to just pick up and go someplace new and stay there for a while really appeals to me. The practical side of things about how to make it happen it still feels a little daunting.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, continue listening to those YouTube channels. They are there to help you with all of that. The RV Life podcast can help, as well as reach out to me anytime we could chat. I think that and I'm looking actually interesting you said that to do an episode on you know, as a new RV or what should you think about, look for those kinds of things. So we'll talk and see where your concerns are and I can see how I can address some of those.
Speaker 1:Okay, but let's get into the Mississippi River. I'm going to be totally honest and transparent. I have, I'm going to say, have been geographically challenged, and that includes, you know, just my area, and when I got in an RV, I said I have to stop saying that because I've become more and more familiar, so I'm learning. I did not know that the Mississippi River runs through 10 states, so I'm already learning from you, Thank you. Today, I'm going to have you break down by state. As RVers travel across the country, I thought it'd be a great idea to be able to have them pick the state that they may be in and there are 10 of them, as I said and find what's in that area. So before we got on the podcast, I said let's start at the top of the country, which is Minnesota, so I'm going to leave it to you. Tell us some cool things that we need to see in Minnesota.
Speaker 2:Well, let me start too with a quick sort of overview of the whole experience. There is a national route called the Great River Road that follows the Mississippi from the headwaters of Minnesota all the way down to Venice, louisiana. So it's about 100 miles south of New Orleans where this ends, and along almost all of it there is a designated Great River Road route on both sides of the Mississippi, so you can go down on the west side of the Mississippi and get to Venice, and then you know Venice. There's essentially just one side of the river you're driving on, but then you can come back up and for the most part you can drive on the east side of the Mississippi and see entirely new places. So if you really wanted to go deep into it, you know you could drive what 5,000 or so miles just along the Mississippi, by covering one bank and then the other.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's incredible. Thank you for sharing that. Maybe that is something people put on their bucket list. Like I want to cover all 48 states in the RV. Now we have people that could follow the national route of the Great River Road. Okay, yeah, thanks, yeah.
Speaker 2:So Minnesota is where the Mississippi officially begins, at a small little place called Lake Itasca. It's about four hours north of the Twin Cities by car and it's protected at Itasca State Park. It's really one of my favorite places along the entire Mississippi because as you travel along the river you get a very different kinds of experiences with what the natural world is like. The river changes a lot from northern Minnesota all the way down to Louisiana, as you might think, and in northern Minnesota at Lake Itasca the river is basically a trickle that comes out of Lake Itasca, so you get a sense of what the very early roots or the beginning of the river is like. But it's also in the middle of the Northwoods and I think that's partly the distinguishing characteristic of the first 200 or 300 miles of the Mississippi is it cuts through these thick forests that until they were logged at the end of the 19th century they were mostly red and white pine trees a few hundred years old, very tall, and there are patches here and there where you can visit old growth sections that were never logged, and there's a little bit of that in Itasca State Park you can visit and get a sense of what those old forests were like, but through that first. Oh, I think it's almost 400 or so miles, maybe even 500, before the river reaches the Twin Cities. The river kind of follows this fishhook pattern through northern Minnesota and I think it's a fascinating area because you've got this mix of these forests, like I said, but it's a glaciated landscape as well. So for thousands of years giant chunks of ice stood on top of this land and then over about 10,000 to 15,000 years ago they retreated and created these new landscapes. 18,000 years ago they retreated and created these new landscapes. So you see the marks of the glaciers in many places around there. If you're kind of a geology geek, I tend to be a little bit of a geology geek myself, so I find it kind of a fun thing to look around and see how many geologic features I can spot that maybe date to the Ice Age. But they're also just some really fun communities.
Speaker 2:Bemidji it's the first city on the Mississippi and it's about a 40-minute drive from Itasca State Park, fun little college town in the middle of northern Minnesota. It's kind of the heart today of the Ojibwe community, the Native Americans who historically lived in that area. So there are opportunities to learn more about Ojibwe culture and connect with Ojibwe culture while you're there. But then there's also that hearty northern Minnesota Northwoods culture that you can also tap into.
Speaker 2:Lots of places to hike and do outdoors activities, a lot of fishing, plenty of places to go for a paddle. It's a fun area and Bemidji has a nice little cultural scene too. It's kind of the largest city and a fairly large geographic area. It's got a college, so there's a lot of things the college sponsors, so it's a good place to base and explore other places that may be a little more remote. So I did a whole book at one time just on this section of the river. There's a lot of different things to see. I think the focus is really on the outdoors activities, but it's also the area where wild rice is harvested and it's still a part of the cultural life of the Native American communities up there to harvest wild rice in the fall, and by fall in Minnesota we mean late August. So I think there's just a lot to really get into and spend time exploring and then when you're tired of maybe visiting a museum or hanging out in a place learning about a community, you can just go for a hike or go paddle somewhere.
Speaker 1:That's great. Wow, so much information. Okay, we are going to flow right into Wisconsin and again, if you want to do a different state, you're the expert. So Wisconsin seemed like the next state to hit.
Speaker 2:Let's do that because it touches on Minnesota as well. So we'll kind of skip past the Twin Cities although I hope people don't, because I think Minneapolis and St Paul are fantastic cities to visit. If it wasn't for the long winter, I might consider living in Minneapolis myself, minneapolis myself. But I lived in Minnesota when I was younger and I feel like I did my time suffering through six months of winter. Don't need to go back to that. But the Twin Cities are really fantastic places so much you could spend, you know, a week or two there and barely scratch the surface. But we'll move on.
Speaker 2:And I will say one little plug that people don't often understand or don't know is there is a national park site in the Twin Cities. There's 72 miles of the Mississippi through the heart of the Twin Cities that are the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area. So it's run by the National Park Service and they do a lot. They have a lot of information on their website about ways to experience the Mississippi through the Twin Cities. But when you get south of the Twin Cities is when you really get into the most, say, scenic parts, what I think are the most scenic parts of the Mississippi. They're kind of the places that are the easiest to access and appreciate the scenic beauty, because you get these gorgeous limestone bluffs that line the river on either side, rising up to about 500 feet tall, and they frame this river valley three to five miles wide in most places. So it's really hard not to be impressed by this beauty when you see these gorgeous bluffs and a river and then lots of woods and forests that run through there.
Speaker 2:There's an area just south of the Twin Cities called Lake Pepin. That's a natural widening in the Mississippi. There's another river that merges with the Mississippi, the Chippewa River. That carries a lot of sediment and it's more than the Mississippi can clear out naturally. So it's formed this natural dam and it's slowed the flow of the river north of there. So there's this widening that we call Lake Pepin. It's probably one of the most popular places for people to visit flow the river north of there. So there's this widening that we call Lake Pepin. That is probably one of the most popular places for people to visit.
Speaker 2:It's just lined with small towns that have heavy art scene. There's lots of bed and breakfasts, lots of places to hike, fun, little restaurants. You can do the drive easily. In a day you can do a loop. It covers both Wisconsin and Minnesota, but probably the most interesting small towns are on the Wisconsin side, stockholm. Wisconsin in particular has the past 20 or 30 years it's probably become more of an artist community than anything else, so there are lots of art galleries and small shops like that and it's just a beautiful place to drive. And, like I said, one of my favorite views of the river is in this stretch. Maiden Rock Bluff is just a bit north of Stockholm and you can park basically on top of the bluff and after a 15-minute hike through the woods you'd be standing there on top of the bluff looking down over Lake Pepin for one of the best views you'll find anywhere in the country. If you ask me but I'm a little biased that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1:I'm just in awe of listening and whirly at state number two.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. There's a lot to do around there. There are a lot of people sailing. There are a lot of people who love to sail on Lake Pepin, and there's still one or two companies that offer sailboat tours on that part of the river as well.
Speaker 2:And then you get south of there and the river around Wabasha, which is just at the southern end of Lake Pepin, the Upper Mississippi National Wildlife Refuge begins, and that goes over 250 miles down to about the Quad Cities 250 miles down to about the Quad Cities and the real impact of that is that this is a stretch of river that was never really levied and developed. So, even though there's some towns that are right there on the river, you have a lot more natural areas. You have more of a natural river. So there are lots of islands, there are lots of heavily wooded islands, there are places where you can rent a canoe and go for an easy paddle on the river.
Speaker 2:It's just an area where you can get a sense of what the Mississippi historically was like, before we began to re-engineer it for navigation, especially for navigation especially, so there are lots of beautiful spots Lacrosse is, you know, I went to college there so I'm completely unbiased, right, but it's a fun community and I think it's really kind of the center of an area where you can access so many different kinds of outdoor recreation bike trails, paddling trails, hiking. There's just a very deep outdoor culture and there are easy ways to get on the river as well, whether you want to ride on a tourist boat or paddle it yourself. So La Crosse is a great place to use as a base when you're visiting that part of the river.
Speaker 1:Okay, so we didn't move into Iowa yet. Is that the next state to cover?
Speaker 2:Okay, let's go into Iowa.
Speaker 1:Let's go into Iowa.
Speaker 2:So I guess one of the themes in all of this, for me too, is that I feel like we have to kind of shape people's expectations of a trip along the Mississippi, because I know people are often disappointed when they drive the Great River Road that sometimes the asphalt gets far away from the river and you don't see it at all.
Speaker 2:And that's going to be true in a lot of Iowa where you can drive the Great River Road but you may not actually see the Mississippi for long stretches, and there are very practical reasons why that's the case. But what I you know, sometimes you have to go a little bit off the beaten path to get to the river. But for me it's really the communities along the river are the places that are probably the most outstanding aspects of a drive down the Mississippi, and Iowa has a bunch of small towns that are right next to the river that are amazing places to visit, just laid back, friendly communities, many of them. You can find the typical small town cafes if you have to enjoy something, and when you're in Iowa I guess you pretty much have to have a pork tenderloin sandwich at some point. It's almost required. If you've never seen one, have you ever had a pork tenderloin sandwich, patty.
Speaker 1:I think I might have. Obviously, I didn't have the best. I wasn't in Iowa for it.
Speaker 2:They tend to be about three times bigger than the bun that they come on, and they're usually fried. I think it's really kind of probably inspired by Wienerschnitzel, you know, the schnitzels that were native to Austrian Germany. There were a lot of Germans who settled in Iowa, so. But you know, the pork tenderloin sandwich is kind of one of those things you have to have, like when you're in Minnesota you should have wild rice and walleye at some point. You know, when you're in Iowa you should have a tenderloin sandwich. And then there are some.
Speaker 2:You've got a mix of kind of medium-sized cities to small towns that are fun places to visit and have different things to offer. Guttenberg Iowa is a fun little place to visit and it's got a very strong identity as a German, ethnic German town. So they do have a German-themed festival every summer. That can be a fun time to go. But beautiful architecture in this small downtown area right next to the river, built by German craftsmen 100-plus years ago. And then Dubuque is probably the highlight of that part of northeast Iowa. It's a medium-sized city, 70,000 people or so, but very old roots, founded essentially as a mining camp and grew from there. Lead mining was a major activity that drew the first American settlers, but it's got some great architecture. There's a nice variety of things to see and do there Really, you know some very good food and again you've got great access to the Mississippi there Further south, like you know, the Quad Cities you know I could go on and on about that.
Speaker 2:I'll just say you could spend a week again there and scratch the surface. But it has all the big city amenities without all the big city hassles, and I really like going to some of the communities in the southeast part of the state. So Burlington is again kind of a medium sized city right next to the Mississippi with a strong river identity. Muscatine is another good place to visit. That's got a good river history, particularly as a center of pearl button manufacturing. So you're going to have to make some choices along the way to try to squeeze in all of this Right.
Speaker 1:And I just want we've covered three of the 10 states and there is so much information and I know for my RVers they might be thinking, okay, but where can I stay? Where can I park my RV and I and that's not your expertise and what I'm going to recommend is people go to campgroundsrvlifecom or to Trip Wizard. It's part of the RV Life suite of products and if they go to any of the places that you just mentioned, they put that into their Trip Wizard planning app and they can see campgrounds, places to stay, whether it's city, state, national parks, private campgrounds it will all be there on the Trip Wizard app. So for people who are now saying, that is great, dean, but I've got a 40-foot RV, where am I going to stay? That is where people can find places to stay. All right, so let's jump to the east side of the Mississippi River and I do have a map in front of me, so I'm cheating here and we're going to jump over to Illinois if that's a good place to go from here.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I will emphasize too for folks who are driving in an RV like the Great River Road is a very well maintained highway, so there are a lot of stretches where it's a two lane road and there are many more stretches that's a four lane highway. So I think if you're driving an RV, there really are very few concerns about taking it down the Mississippi along the Great River Road. At this point. You know it's all very well, it's all good highway. And the campgrounds do vary a lot. The Corps of Engineers maintains campgrounds in many places along the Mississippi. Some of them are very basic, where you may only have, you know, a place to pull into, with nothing else, and some, like the Thompson Causeway Recreation Area, are full service campgrounds that are very popular with RVers. So you'll find a whole range of different options where you can be right next to the river for a very inexpensive price to the full-service campgrounds that will be more expensive. So Illinois is one of the states that has the most river miles. It might be number two. I used to have this stuff memorized, but there are the. Illinois has a very long border along the Mississippi, so there's a lot of things to a lot of places to visit there and again some very different kinds of experiences depending upon what you're looking for. So let's kind of start up in the northwest corner of the state.
Speaker 2:Galena is probably, other than maybe New Orleans, the most visited site along the Mississippi or near the Mississippi. Galena is actually a few miles off the Mississippi River but the Galena River connects to the Mississippi and historically steamboats, when they traveled up the Mississippi, would take a detour up the Galena River to service that community. And it started as the major lead mining center in the 1820s and it was quite a boom town At one time. It had, I think, three or four times as many people as it does today. So it's a very popular place to visit today. I would imagine if you're driving an RV through there, you might want to go during the week when there's less traffic and maybe a little easier to find a spot to park. But the town has a lot of pre-Civil War architecture and this beautiful downtown area that the main street just sort of follows the gentle curve of the Galena River. So you have this streetscape of three and four story brick you know pre-Civil War brick buildings that line this main street and they're occupied by locally owned businesses and restaurants and places to stay. It may be the bed and breakfast capital of the Mississippi River too. There are probably more B&Bs there than just about anywhere else along Mississippi, maybe, except for Natchez. So it gets very busy on weekends and part of the attraction is, you know, the lead mining.
Speaker 2:History is interesting to folks, but it also has its own place in Civil War history, as Ulysses Grant had a home there. In fact the home he lived in is a National Historic Site you can visit there, and there were, I think, eight men from Galena or with ties to Galena who ended up being generals for the Union during the Civil War. So it's got that really interesting history. And then there are mounds and historic sites, native American mounds and historic sites in the area I didn't mention with Iowa, but I probably should have that Effigy Mounds National Monument. It's a place you really should visit as well, because it preserves 100 or so mounds and various sites from different periods of Native American history, and you can see some of that around Galena as well, and further south at Albany, also has another set of mounds that date back a thousand plus years. So Galena is probably the place most people might be, you know might be most familiar with.
Speaker 2:But then as you travel south from there the communities become generally more smaller and heavily agricultural.
Speaker 2:There's a little south of Galena. Savannah. Illinois has become kind of the what some folks call the blue collar Galena. It tends to attract people that are interested in motorcycling and travel around on motorcycles. So there's a culture of bars and places to stay that really cater to folks who are traveling on motorcycles, but there are campgrounds around there as well.
Speaker 2:Then further south from there is you get past the Quad Cities. There's kind of a long stretch that's all agricultural really, where there's not going to be all that many places to stop and visit and the communities that you might stop at Keesburg, oquaka, places like that, there'll be a good small town museum or two to visit, but you may not see enough to stick around for longer than that, but they're worth visiting. Enough to stick around for longer than that, but they're worth visiting. I don't know about you, but when I'm traveling around, small town museums are one of my favorite places to visit. You get a nice insight into the community itself and there are these really dedicated volunteers that obviously love and care for their communities and want to tell you about them. So a lot of these smaller towns, like Oquaka, have their own small town museums. You may need to call in advance to make sure when they're open, because you know there may be one volunteer who only can come once a week and to your point.
Speaker 1:Yes, I do love those museums. Sometimes at welcoming centers you'll have a museum about the area and it's just a small little area, but there's so much there that you can learn and so many cool things to see and find out about. So I agree with you, I love those.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the other places that I think a lot of people will visit for the history is Nauvoo, illinois, which is a very important place in Mormon history for the Latter-day Saints Church. It's really the place where many of the foundational principles were developed by Joseph Smith, and he was murdered not too far from there, just before the community had to—were basically forced out and had to move west. So Nauvoo has a very important place in Mormon history. It's almost like a pilgrimage site for many people who are members of the LDS Church. It's an interesting place to visit as well for anybody, because the history associated with that period of time is really front and center. Then let's kind of skip on Quincy, illinois.
Speaker 2:I really enjoy visiting Quincy. It's for a town of its size like 40,000 or so people. It's got some really impressive architecture and you can find styles of architecture that cut across different periods. So it's got beautiful. You know antebellum architecture, some great Victorian architecture. Then there are some neighborhoods where you can find Art Deco buildings, you know. So it's a really interesting place and they're at their visitor center just south of town. You can stop and you can pick up a guide if you want to just drive around and look at different kinds of building and architecture around town. It's also right there on the Mississippi and it's on top of the bluff, so it's got great views and there are a couple of really fantastic places to eat there as well. And then from there it becomes very agricultural until you get close to the St Louis metropolitan area very agricultural until you get close to the St Louis metropolitan area.
Speaker 2:And just north of St Louis there's a stretch of the Great River Road from Alton to Grafton that is right next to the river, right between the river and the bluff. That is one of the three or four most scenic stretches of the drive along the Great River Road. And Grafton is a very popular tourist town People, especially on weekends. It'll be very busy with visitors. Many of them go there to spend a night or two, to relax, to hang out. There are a few things to do in the area. There's some hiking nearby at Paramarquette State Park and a couple of other places. But it's kind of a place that people do as a day trip and like to go visit, for the food and to hang out next to the river and it's a cool little town. They've got a bunch of festivals throughout the year too.
Speaker 1:Right, so we stepped into Missouri, correct? You said St Louis.
Speaker 2:No, we're still on the Illinois side, but we're across the river from St Louis. We're still on the Illinois side, but we're across the river from St Louis.
Speaker 1:Oh, got it Okay, just to be clear, okay.
Speaker 2:Yep. So we're still working our way down the Illinois side, but we're going to pass by St Louis metropolitan area. The Alton is about a 30-minute drive from downtown St Louis, a little bit north of there, and that stretch of river is a pretty popular place for people to road trip to and drive. So we'll continue on south from there and I'm going to just highlight a couple of other things. When you get, oh, an hour or so south of St Louis, or not much far from St Louis, you start to get into an area that has a deep French colonial history, and I'll talk more about that when we talk about Missouri.
Speaker 2:But there are a couple of places on the Illinois side that really offer a glimpse into that French colonial past. There's a fort that those of us in this region tend to call Fort Charters, but probably more appropriately Fort de Chartres. That was a French colonial fort built in the mid-1700s, and a couple of buildings have been reconstructed. It's an interesting site to visit for that history and they do festivals throughout the year too. I think it's really most fun to go there when they have some festival going on. They do a rendezvous, usually in early June, to recreate kind of that experience of the fur trade and people coming together and Native Americans and fur traders and government officials and cavalry and all kind of come assembling in the same place and people dress up in period costumes and it's a whole thing and it's fun to visit on that weekend and rendezvous happen in many places along the river but this is one of the bigger rendezvous and nearby Prairie du Rocher is one of those old communities that the roots go back before the US was an independent country.
Speaker 2:It was founded as a French colonial outpost. Essentially it's got a couple of things to visit. It's a very small town but they have a small museum and house an old historic house that helped tell the story of that area. From there we'll just kind of dip all the way down to Southern Illinois and for me the southern quarter or so of the state. The major attraction is Shawnee National Forest and some of it touches on the Mississippi. There are places that you can camp and hike along there. There's one particular area that's one of my favorite spots to go that maybe not everybody would find as exciting as me, but it's known as Snake Road.
Speaker 1:For those who can't see, I'm shaking my head no, Right? No, thank you.
Speaker 2:So if you're deathly afraid of snakes, maybe this isn't the place for you.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But it's this little road that was built between a bluff and wetlands and twice a year snakes move between the bluffs and the wetlands.
Speaker 2:So the snakes winter in the warmth and safety of the bluffs and as the seasons change and it warms up they move from those bluffs into the wetlands where they will spend most of the warmer months.
Speaker 2:So they close the road to all auto traffic for a couple of months in the spring and then again in the fall for the reverse migration. And it's a good time, if you're interested in snakes, to hop on down there and maybe spot a few. You don't always see them and it takes a little bit of patience, but probably about half the time I've gone down to visit I've seen some snakes and you do need to be aware that some of them are venomous cottonmouths. So you want to keep your distance regardless of what there is. But I talked with the park ranger who oversees that area last year and I think he said he's identified 17 or 18 different species of snakes that call that area home 17 or 18 different species of snakes that call that area home. So if you're really into that and you don't mind seeing a snake from a respectful distance, I think it's a really unique experience that you don't find in many other places, but it's all just really beautiful.
Speaker 1:Right, it sounds like a very unique experience. I don't want to just tape people for me. I'm out, thank you, but but but it does sound interesting. Now, if it were horses then you know that would be more interesting to me, but there are a lot of people that are into snakes, so that sounds like a cool idea.
Speaker 2:Right. So, yeah, I recommend that as a spot to go, and Shawnee National Forest in general has. It's a big area. It covers much of southern Illinois from the Mississippi River up to the Ohio River, with different sections that are national forests and there are state parks mixed in in.
Speaker 2:Giant City State Park in Southern Illinois is one of my favorite spots to go. It's not on the Mississippi, it's an hour and a half or so away from the Mississippi, but it's part of that area that historically, the Ohio River used to cut through there closer than where it does today. So it's an interesting geologic mix where you have, like, giant rocks you know that sometimes have you know, there are these giant boulders that stand out in the middle of nowhere, or, uh, these forests that grow around these limestone cliffs and, uh, and deep valleys. So it's I really like exploring down there. It's also they've kind of grown their own wine wine culture. You know there are a number of local wineries that grow their own grapes in that area. So there's a lot of interesting stuff to do down there as well.
Speaker 1:Now you're talking about language. So I don't even drink wine. I've tasted it. I have people that really enjoy wine. I could taste differences, but I love vineyards and wineries. They're just incredible places to go. So even from somebody who doesn't really drink, it sounds that now you're talking more my speed I can do that.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so of course you want a designated driver if you're going to be doing this right as many of these places you'd have to drive from winery to winery to get the experience. Many of them have live music, especially on weekends, so even if you're not there to try the wine, you could go hang out and listen to some live music. And it's a rural area. There's not really a big city. Carbondale is the largest city nearby and it's not that big a city. So it's a very laid back, know, low-key area to to travel around. Highly recommend it.
Speaker 2:I'll make a quick mention at the very southern uh, southwestern tip of illinois, the town of cairo. It, let's just say it's been through some difficult times and it's had a substantial population loss over time. I think it's an interesting place to learn about, to learn the history of. There aren't going to be too many sites to visit there. They do have a museum. I would call in advance to find out if they're open. And then, if you continue through town, there's Fort Defiance State Park is right at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and you can stand right there with the Ohio on your left and the Mississippi on your right, and that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:Can you define what that means? What was the word? I lost it.
Speaker 2:The confluence.
Speaker 1:The confluence.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, it's just a spot where two rivers meet, so the two rivers become one, and at this spot, like these, are two of the biggest rivers in North America that merge into the Mississippi. The Ohio River ends and the river that continues on is still the Mississippi, but it's much bigger, I will like. All the caution I'll offer is that that part floods often this is one of the other things to keep in mind about traveling along the Mississippi in general is that the river rises, the river falls and sometimes you can't get to places because the water is too high. And Fort Defiance State Park floods almost every year, some years worse than others. I think it's probably underwater right now, but if it's not at flood stage, if the Ohio, especially, is not at flood stage, then I think it's good just to go to this site to be able to see where these two rivers come together.
Speaker 1:That sounds amazing. I actually was in Arizona and at a vineyard and winery and I just I spent days there, I loved it and I never had one sip of wine. I didn't need to, it was just amazing. But there is a confluence there. I forgot what the rivers are that come together and it was just an amazing. It seems so simple and nothing that big a deal, but it was just amazing. So that sounds incredible. Putting that on my bucket list awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, so, uh. So that kind of finishes illinois I guess okay.
Speaker 1:So before we jump into missouri right, which is next make sure you keep me on track here. I just want to just take a pause for a second here and in all of the information that you are giving, that is amazing information for my listeners. We actually stopped the podcast and I asked my editor about making this a two part series. Well, when we started the information you were giving, the wealth of knowledge, I didn't want to cut it short. I didn't want to have to get you down to a very narrow because you're giving so much great information. So for my listeners, we are going to cover Missouri, we have some other things we're going to talk about and then part two is going to cover our other five states. I'm really excited While we're talking about traveling so much traveling.
Speaker 1:If you have diesel fuel, then for any of my listeners, you want to check out the Open Roads fuel card. Check out the Open Roads fuel card. They can save you anywhere from 40 to 60 cents on diesel fuel. In February I'll put it in the show notes I had the people from Open Roads on talking about the program, as well as 12 couples that use the Open Roads card for 2024 and exactly how much money they save. So there are 12 testimonials. There is a link in the show notes for that. So just to help you as you're traveling, save some money here. Okay, so let's hit Missouri. These are the Upper Mississippi River. We call it right.
Speaker 2:What counts as the Upper Mississippi, I guess depends on who you ask, because there is some variation of what people consider the Upper Mississippi.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say so you gave me this, your I'm reading and I don't know see what it's called. There's a PDF that I'm reading and you called these five the Upper Mississippi. So that is what I'm going by and, yes, people have their own, but it looked like a good stopping starting point. So we're going to put that in the show notes so people could look at the picture I'm looking at and there's so much information on this document. So you have with Missouri.
Speaker 2:Well, let's talk some about Missouri, and there's quite a bit to cover here too. This is another area where the river and the communities change quite a bit as you travel from north to south and, of course, like if we're starting in the northern part along in Missouri, you have to talk about Hannibal. We can't skip Hannibal, and most people will know that because of Mark Twain, and Hannibal does all it can to make the most of its connection to Mark Twain. So my feeling is a little mixed, I'll be honest. I do think, like the Mark Twain sites in Hannibal are really good. The Mark Twain Museum, I think, is something everybody should visit and tour around. His childhood home is part of that admission, and that's a good place to visit as well.
Speaker 2:Some of the rest of the stuff in town, I think, tends to get a little too kitschy for my tastes. You know it tends to maybe play too much, take advantage of too much of the whole Mark Twain theme, but there are still good places to eat and the Main Street area is almost entirely local shops. I have a very strong preference to patronize locally owned businesses as much as possible, and there's plenty of that in that section of Hannibal. They also have riverboat tours. So it's one of the places where you can do a day cruise for a couple of hours, maybe a lunch cruise or maybe an evening cruise around sunset, sometimes with music, so you can get out on the water and you can kind of imagine this world as Mark Twain would have known it and get some sense about how that might have influenced his own worldviews. But the Mark Twain Museum is definitely a place everybody should visit. As you continue on through there again, you're going to go through a stretch where you're not going to see much of the river, but there's some, um, good historic river towns that are worth at least driving through, maybe stopping and visiting a local museum if it's open, or a bite of eat. Louisiana and uh and clarksville fit that bill and um, there were. They also have a couple places where you can just kind of stop next to the river and see what's going on on the river. Then you kind of get into Metropolitan St Louis and we could do a couple of shows just on that. So we'll just kind of I'll just highlight a couple of things about this that gosh, there's just so much to say. So when you get a little closer to the metropolitan area.
Speaker 2:Then you get near the confluence of the Missouri and the Mississippi rivers and I think you know this is one of my favorite places to go. I have my own spot that I like to go when I need to get away from the city and it's up at the confluence area. There's a place called Columbia Bottoms Conservation Area. That is right next to both rivers so there's some hiking trails around there. The area floods regularly too, so it's a little bit of a transition right now where they're moving away from some of the hands-on management that they used to do to keep everything open and accessible and letting things get a little more wild. But you can. There's an area where you can park and then walk about a mile to get to see the confluence directly of the Missouri and the Mississippi.
Speaker 2:River is from that southeast corner of the confluence and there are some places you can hike along there that are kind of semi-marked trails.
Speaker 2:It's just the other side of the Missouri River. You're still on the Missouri side of the Mississippi, but you're then north of the Missouri River. You're still on the Missouri side of the Mississippi but you're then north of the Missouri River and Confluence it's Jones. Confluence Point State Park has a nice parking lot and a short, like five-minute walk on a paved sidewalk to get from the parking lot to see the spot where the two rivers merge and that's a really, really good view from there. There's a little bit of hiking around there, but it's not the kind of place you're going to spend a couple of hours. You'll probably be there for a fairly quick stop to take a look at the two rivers and again, like there's a, there's this narrow point that kind of disappears into the rivers where you could theoretically stand with one foot in the Mississippi and one foot in the Missouri, stand with one foot in the Mississippi and one foot in the Missouri. So if you're into those you know nerdy things like me then you might want to do that.
Speaker 1:That sounds great. I like that idea.
Speaker 2:In St Louis proper. You know the main river-related site is going to be the Gateway Arch and if you've never been there you should definitely go. They did a major renovation six or seven years ago now and changed quite a bit. So if you're driving an RV into downtown, you know you may not do that. I don't quite know like how everybody in an RV might approach that. There is no parking right next to the arch. Almost all of the parking associated with the arch now is in parking garages downtown and then you have to walk from there to get to the arch itself. So keep that in mind if you're going to visit the arch and you don't have an alternate vehicle that you could take into the city. But it's so worth a visit.
Speaker 2:The museum under the arch is fantastic. They completely redid that as part of the renovation. You can ride up an elevator to the top of the arch and if you've never done that, I highly recommend it. If you're claustrophobic, you know, yeah, maybe not, you know, if you don't really like enclosed spaces because those capsules you ride up, then the elevator pretty cozy and you're going to get to know your neighbors pretty well for the couple of minutes it takes to get to the top, but it's worth the experience. I find the engineering of that really fascinating, and then you get views from the top of the arch where you can look out over St Louis and over Illinois and see quite a bit of the Mississippi from there. So if you're only going to do one thing river related in St Louis, then you probably should do the Gateway Arch experience.
Speaker 2:There's a lot to cover in Missouri as well, and I'll do a couple more highlights. So the next major highlight really, as you're traveling south, is going to be in St Genevieve, and that's really the heart of the French colonial territory, really the heart of the French colonial territory, and Saint Genevieve has sections of it now that are managed by the National Park Service. It's, I think, saint Genevieve National Historic Park. So there are a number of buildings that date to that French colonial period that survive today, so over 200 years old, really interesting architectural styles. You can tour much of that Again. Lots of bed and breakfasts, lots of places to tour the architecture in that area, and the Center for French Colonial Life really gives a good sense of what that heritage is like.
Speaker 1:Okay, is that Missouri as much? I know there's got to be a ton more. You feel like we've covered Missouri pretty well here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll just say Cape Girardeau would be the next sort of big city along the way and it's worth visiting too. But you know you can read up on that. It's a good river town and has a couple of sites worth visiting as well, but probably most people will see St Genevieve and then continue on.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay. So let's talk a little bit about you are interested in this whole idea of RVing. I'm going to make a suggestion. One of my sponsors is National Indoor RV Centers. They have six locations across the country, one of them in Tennessee, which is one of the states where Mississippi, the Mississippi River, runs by. I have notes so I knew that, and so if you're looking for that van or you want to get up to that Class A, that's the place for you to reach out and people can check out what National Enduro RV Centers has by going to NIRVCcom.
Speaker 1:I want to take a minute now because it is time for the question of the week and we are doing this in two parts. But I want to cover the question of the week, so I'm going to ask you the question, which I think is going to be tough for you, dean, and I didn't tell you about this question, so I'm going to ask you the question. I'm going to be tough for you, dean, and I didn't tell you about this question, so I'm going to ask you the question. I'm going to give you a few minutes while I talk about innovative toll solutions. Question is what do you have on your bucket list? I know you just covered a slew of things. You're shaking your head You're not cringing. I know you just covered a slew of things. You're shaking your head, you're not cringing. What is on your bucket list that you would recommend to my listeners?
Speaker 1:Now, while you're thinking about that, innovative Toll Solutions is a toll pass that covers all 48 states. It covers every toll across the US states. It covers every toll across the US. And what is best about Innovative Toll Solutions, I think, is A you have one toll pass. You don't have to worry about which pass needs to be in the window depending on which state you're in, but if you should get a violation or have an issue with going through a toll, innovative Toll Solutions will handle it for you. You call them, you email them or you go to the app and they will take care of it for you. Okay, I could see Dean is still thinking but what would you? What would be a place, an experience, something to do or see that is on your bucket list?
Speaker 2:So are we talking anywhere around the world, or just the Mississippi Anywhere around the world, anywhere you want. Well, on my personal bucket list is I want to get to Antarctica.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Probably not what you're expecting, but I have a fascination with remote places, and Antarctica is about as remote as one can get, although there are cruises that go down there, so it's not quite as remote as it seems. But I really would like to be able to step on that continent and walk around and just kind of see the place for myself.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a cool suggestion. I don't think that has ever been. I ask this question of people every week and that has probably never been the answer, but that sounds really cool and certainly remote, so I'll have to investigate it. See if I'm going to add that to my bucket list. It's now time to talk about campgrounds and, as we talked about in the show, to investigate Antarctica. See if I'm going to add that to my bucket list.
Speaker 1:It's now time to talk about campgrounds and, as we talked about in the show, there are campgrounds that are around all of the places that Dean mentioned, and the easiest way to find a campground in the area and you gave some great suggestions, so I hope people take those into consideration. But a great way to find all things camping is by going to campgroundsrvlifecom. It is part of the RV Life Pro Suite of products and it will cover all types of campgrounds, like I said private state campgrounds, corps of Engineers, blm land, you name it. It's going to be covered there. If you don't have the RV Life Pro Suite of products, there is a link in the show notes. Once you get to check out, it'll give you 25% off for any new users.
Speaker 1:Now, as I said I'm not going to thank you and close out this episode. Well, maybe I will, but first of all, the first thing we need to do, let me back up, because we are making this a part two and I just decided that in the middle of the interview. So here we are. I'm glad I'm the boss of this podcast. People can get you by going to MississippiValleyTravelercom correct, that's the best way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll just make a quick plug, pretty much everything that we've talked about is in my Great River Road guidebook. So if this is a lot of information and you're trying to take notes, the Great Road Tripping, the Great River Road, volume 1. Unfortunately, I don't think there's going to be a Volume 2, but Volume 1 does exist and it covers the upper half of the river. It includes all of that and more. And then my website, mississippivalleytravelercom, has a section on river towns and it includes a lot of that same information as well.
Speaker 1:If you would prefer just to kind of surf through different websites, Right, and that's what I was looking at as you're talking so I could visualize on the map. I'm learning these states that I really wasn't as familiar with, so I highly recommend people looking at road tripping the Great River Road, because it's been. I've been reading it for the last week in preparation for our interview. Okay, I do want to thank you for people who are watching this episode. I want to thank you very much for being on. Do you also have social media that we can lead people to? I didn't ask.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a little inconsistent with that, to be honest. I have been pulling back some, but I do have an Instagram feed and I think I'm at deanclink on Instagram. I would say that's probably the best place, the most reliable place, where I post, and when I'm traveling I tend to post a lot of pictures, so a lot of pretty pictures from the Mississippi and other places, but there's also the Mississippi Valley Traveler page on Facebook.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're going to get me that information. I'll post it in the show notes. You said you're not consistent, so if people want to reach out to me, we want to hear questions, comments, suggestions from people. You and I both want to hear that and they can reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook at RV Life Podcast. And yeah, I mean this was incredible. I cannot wait for part two. We're going to cover the next five states in the lower half of the Mississippi River. This is really exciting and, being that right now this is going to be posted in the winter months, people may want to start out in this lower half because of weather and work their way up. If they decide they want to travel up the Mississippi River, that's cool. Anybody who's traveled it, anybody who is thinking about doing that. I really want to hear from you. I want to thank my listeners for listening and remember life's a journey. Live each day to the fullest, without regrets. I'm Patti Hunt and you've been listening to the RV Life Podcast.